- Anti-government protests put civic projects in limbo including Metro Bus Project
The anti-government protests have resulted into halt of some important development schemes including the Metro Bus Project in twin cities, besides seriously putting off the interest of foreign investors, foreign media reports.
The British newspaper Guardian in an article terms Metro Bus plan an “important project” that has been held owing to the protests and sit-ins by some politicians.
The paper mentions that Islamabad’s new public transport system with its shiny new articulated buses, freshly dug underpasses and dedicated flyovers, is supposed to be a symbol of a government that gets big things done.
But as a December deadline approaches before thousands of civil servants supposedly start taking the 15-mile Metro Bus journey for their commute into the heart of Pakistan’s capital, the final section of the route along the city’s main avenue is a mess of giant holes and ripped up concrete.
The paper points that the frantic construction work on the 265 million pounds scheme ground to a halt in August when thousands of anti-government protesters, led by opposition politician Imran Khan and a cleric called Tahirul Qadri, flooded into the city.
“It is not just an important project that has been held up. The protesters also succeeded in paralysing Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s government,” the writer of the article Jon Boone said.
The Guardian said international investors have been seriously put off by the sight of thousands of protesters overwhelming the government quarter of the capital and smashing their way into the grounds of parliament in late August.
“Before the protests we had a brilliant story to tell about Pakistan,” said Privatisation Commission Chairman Mohammad Zubair Umar. He said last year had been a turning point for Pakistan as it was the first time a government had survived a full five-year term and saw the first successful transfer of power to another elected government.
“We told investors that we now had the kind of political stability Pakistan never witnessed in its first 60 years,” Zubair Umar said.